When writing a eulogy feels impossible, the way in isn't through the grief—it's through a song. That's what I discovered after losing my mom fifteen months after my memoir, "Girl in the Spotlight" was published, a book in which our mother-daughter story was woven all the way through. I'm sharing her eulogy today because music does something that even a writer reaches for when words aren't enough, and I want to show you how it can help you connect to your own story too.

Who this is for: You don't need to know my mom or read my book to feel this one. You just need to have songs—the ones that keep you connected to your own story.

What We Talk About In This Episode:

• Why good stories start and end with the same image — and how a Rod Stewart song became both the opening and the closing of a whole relationship
• What it looks like to find your way into a piece of writing when the subject feels impossible to hold
• A eulogy read aloud—a love letter to a woman who made every place feel like home and danced to beach music anywhere she stood
• How music bypasses the places where words get stuck and what that means for the stories we tell
• The moment I realized I wasn't just writing about my mom, I was living out the lyrics in real time
• What the act of searching for the story actually reveals about storytelling itself
• Three reflection questions to help you find your own way in to the piece of writing, the hard conversation, or the story you've been carrying
• The playlist I made while writing Girl in the Spotlight and where to find it

Songs from this episode:

You're in My Heart — Rod Stewart 

Me and Bobby McGee — Janis Joplin 

PYT (Pretty Young Thing) — Michael Jackson 

Silver Springs — Fleetwood Mac 

I Love Beach Music — The Embers 

Carolina Girls — General Johnson 

Electric Slide — Marcia Griffiths 

Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) — Silentó 

Ain't No Mountain High Enough — Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell 

Three Little Birds — Bob Marley 

You Are My Sunshine — traditional 

Everything I Do (I Do It For You) — Bryan Adams 

Calling All Angels — Train 

Forever Young — Rod Stewart

Fight Song — Rachel Platten 

Angel — Sarah McLachlan

Mentioned in this episode: 

E27: Girl in the Spotlight Is Now an Audiobook (And Why the Story Still Matters)

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